A prominent Republican congressman is under investigation for insider trading.U.S. Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.), who heads the House Financial Services Committee, is being probed by the Office of Congressional Ethics for making suspicious trades and buying certain stock options while helping oversee the nation’s banking and financial services industries.

Conservatives generally adore Winston Churchill, the prime minister who led Great Britain during the dark days of World War II and again for a period in the early 1950s. The bulldog-faced Tory represents most of the values conservatives hold dear, so much so that he beat Ronald Reagan for the top spot as “Man of the Century” in a poll by Right Wing News.

A bipartisan political action committee (PAC) that lobbies for “fair and just immigration laws” has selected Butler County's outspoken sheriff as one of 10 U.S. politicians inducted into itsnewly created Hall of Shame for local officials across the nation.

Immigrants' List saysSheriff Richard K. Jones was selected because the conservative Republican exploits fear and misinformation to make headlines and further his political ambitions.

GOP congressman blocks woman from testifying about birth control rule

Two Democratic congresswomen walked out of a hearing today in the House after a Republican colleague blocked a woman from testifying about a new federal rule that will require most employers to provide free birth control.

U.S. Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) and Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) left the hearing after House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) prevented the woman from being added to the witness list.

Announced last month, the rule reclassifies birth control as a preventative health measure, which means most employers must cover contraception in their insurance plans with no cost sharing like co-pays or deductibles. Initially, an exemption was granted for churches but not for religiously affiliated schools and hospitals, which angered some Catholic bishops and others.

In a compromise unveiled Feb. 10, President Obama said religiously affiliated schools and hospitals wouldn’t be forced to offer coverage for free contraceptives. Rather, insurers will be required to offer the coverage free to any women who work at such institutions.

That wasn’t good enough for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and some conservative politicians, who said the coverage shouldn’t be required at all.

Issa’s staff informed Democratic members of the committee that the hearing was about religious liberty in general, and not the contraception mandate, in explaining why Sandra Fluke couldn’t testify.

“As the hearing is not about reproductive rights and contraception but instead about the (Obama) administration’s actions as they relate to freedom of religion and conscience, he believes that Ms. Fluke is not an appropriate witness,” Issa’s staffers wrote in a letter.

Fluke wanted to tell about an incident involving a 32-year-old friend who was diagnosed with ovarian cysts and prescribed birth control pills as the only remedy for her condition. Because the woman’s insurance didn’t cover contraception, the friend couldn’t afford her medication and eventually lost her ovary.

Eleven people were on Issa’s witness list, led by the Rev. William Lori, the Roman Catholic bishop of Bridgeport, Conn. Eight of Issa’s witnesses are Orthodox Christian, Catholic or evangelical, and represent Christian institutions.

Originally, Issa only planned on calling nine witnesses — all men. After the public flap, he added two women to the list.

As far as conservatives go, I can tolerate columnist George Will and often enjoy reading his work. Unlike most of what passes as conservatism today, Will tends to base his arguments on logic and fact, not emotion and rhetoric.

Making him even more of an anomaly in Republican circles, Will acknowledges and corrects his errors, when he makes them. As an added bonus, he's also a deft wordsmith.

Despite his many years in office, Congressman Steve Chabot (R-Westwood) could stand to take a few pointers from Will. Chabot, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, spoke during a hearing Wednesday about his concerns with a total withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq by year's end.

One
of Ohio's two U.S. senators says Democrats need to get better
organized so they can counteract private conservative groups that
secretly draft legislation for Republican lawmakers.

The
Porkopolis column in this week's CityBeatfeatures excerpts from an interview with U.S. Sen. Sherrod
Brown (D-Ohio). As is often the case with print media, there was
limited space available and segments of the wide-ranging interview
with Brown weren't included in the column.

One
of the unused segments included Brown's responses to questions about
whether President Obama and Congressional Democrats are aggressive
enough in pushing their agenda, and whether the Left needs a group to
counteract organizations like the American Legislative Exchange
Council (ALEC).

Asked
if Democrats at the federal level are too reactive and need to do
better at framing and guiding debate on issues, Brown said his party
could use some improvement in that regard. He cited the theories of
Ralph Waldo Emerson, the 19th Century essayist and
abolitionist.

“I
think the Democrats could do better at that, from the president on
down,” Brown said. “It's always easier to say no. The one reason
(Republicans) do well with message is, by definition almost, of
conservative. Emerson talked about the innovators and the
conservators. Progressives are the innovators and conservatives are
the conservators. By definition, the conservators protect the status
quo. Protecting the status quo means 'no,' 'repeal,' 'don't,' and
'not.' Those are simple concepts. Changing things is more complex.”

Also,
Brown wishes the media would more clearly articulate what's happening
in Washington. During the recent debate on raising the federal debt
ceiling, for example, it was Obama and Democrats who were willing to
compromise, a fact he believes didn't receive enough attention.

“When
one party digs in and is extreme, both parties look bad,” he said.
“When people say, 'they all look terrible in Washington,' a big
reason for that is Republicans weren't willing to negotiate anything.
They were willing to shut the government down if we didn't do things
their way.

“We,
in the end, want to be responsible,” Brown added. “A bunch of
senators were in the White House months ago and Barack Obama said to
us, 'I'm the adult and I have to be responsible. They know I'm not
going to let the government default.' Well, as long as they know
that, it changes things.”

Brown
likes the suggestion of Democrats forming their own progressive
version of ALEC — the private, corporate-backed group that writes
model legislation for state lawmakers, which is funded by the Koch
brothers, the National Rifle Association and others.

“That
might be a good idea,” he said. “The elections last year were all
about job loss. Spending a little bit, but mostly about job loss.
Then you look at the three most salient things this state legislature
has done, which is roll back collective bargaining rights, voting
rights and women's rights.

“Not
only is that not solving the problems we really have, which is jobs,
it's also injecting divisions into our country and our state that we
don't need,” Brown added. “It's made people so angry and hurt so
many people's feelings in a really significant way and for what? So
they can accomplish a political agenda. That's what is really
outrageous.”

An
ardent opponent of going to war in Iraq, Brown believes some
progressives' fear that Obama will extend the wars there and in
Afghanistan beyond the timetables for troop withdrawals is unfounded.

“I'm
confident they will be respected and I'm hoping Afghanistan's will be
accelerated,” he said. “I think (Obama) will stand on what he
said.”

The
senator is more ambivalent about U.S. intervention in the uprising in
Libya. “I wish the president had been a bit more forthcoming with
Congress about our involvement, but people I respect have also said
it would've been a real genocide there if the Europeans and we hadn't
done something,” Brown said. “It's an awfully difficult call.”

Brown
believes extremist actions by the GOP — like restricting collective
bargaining rights at the state level, and trying to defund Planned
Parenthood and limit access to abortion at the federal level — are
out of touch with the mainstream, and will benefit Democrats in next
year's elections.

“Voters
absolutely see these guys overreaching,” Brown said. “The voters
aren't wild about Barack Obama and the Democrats, but they like the
Republicans even less.

“They've
overreached on Medicare, it's going after Head Start and Planned
Parenthood and all the kinds of things there is general consensus
about in this country,” he added. “We have general consensus in
this country on many things, except the Far Right, on items like the
environment, on Medicare, on food safety, on voting rights. These
guys have exploded that.”

Tuesday's primary election yielded a few surprises that even jaded political pundits didn't see coming. Chief among them was the stunning upset that Brad Wenstrup pulled off against incumbent Republican Congresswoman Jean Schmidt. Wenstrup, a podiatrist who is an Iraq War veteran, got 49 percent of the vote to Schmidt’s 43 percent, according to final, uncertified results. That means Wenstrup will either face off against Madeira businessman David Krikorian or William R. Smith – a virtual unknown who didn't campaign – in the November election for Ohio's 2nd Congressional District seat. The race between the two Democrats remains too close to call.

Another surprise was U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur's victory over U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich in the Democratic primary for a Congressional district in northeastern Ohio, near Cleveland. The two veteran lawmakers were redistricted recently into the same area, meaning one would be knocked off after Tuesday's primary. Kucinich was one of the most progressive members of Congress and an ardent Iraq War opponent; it's unclear if he plans to stay in politics in some fashion.

In what's bad news for Mitt Romney, no matter how his handlers try to spin it, the ex-Massachusetts governor scored a razor-thin 1 percent victory over upstart Rick Santorum in Ohio's contest for the GOP presidential nomination. Romney got just 12,019 more votes than Santorum, despite outspending the former senator from Pennsylvania by a sizable margin. Romney also won in Alaska, Idaho, Vermont, Virginia and his home state of Massachusetts; Santorum won in North Dakota, Oklahoma and Tennessee. Meanwhile, Newt “I coulda been a contender” Gingrich scored a single victory, in his native Georgia. Bye, Newt.

Despite being defeated twice before in the general election, former appellate court judge William O'Neill of Cleveland easily won over Hamilton County Municipal Court Judge Fanon Rucker to become the Democratic Party's nominee for the Ohio Supreme Court. O'Neill received nearly 72 percent of the vote. He will face off against incumbent Republican Justice Robert Cupp in the fall.

The Coalition Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes (COAST) suffered a defeat Tuesday when one of its leaders, ex-State Rep. Tom Brinkman Jr., lost to Peter Stautberg to get the Republican nomination for the newly created 27th District seat in the Ohio House. Stautberg handily defeated Brinkman by 61-39 percent.

It also looks like State Rep. Denise Driehaus prevailed in the hotly contested Democratic primary race for the new 31st District seat in the Ohio House. In Hamilton County, Driehaus got 57.5 percent of the vote, compared to 24.5 percent for Luke Brockmeier and 17.9 percent for Terry Tranter.

In non-election news, the small Clermont County town of Moscow is beginning to clean up four days after a tornado leveled much of the area. Teams from the Federal Emergency Management Agency inspected the damage Tuesday, and will issue a report to Gov. John Kasich within a few days.

Speaking of Kasich, our (not so) beloved guv was the sole person out of the nation's 50 governors not to sign a letter protesting proposed cuts to the Air National Guard. A Kasich spokesman said Odd John didn’t add his name to the letter because it was circulated at a meeting of the National Governor’s Association in Washington last month, and Kasich didn’t attend because he’s not a member.

On the national scene, President Obama held his first press conference of 2012 on Tuesday. Obama accused the Republican presidential candidates of casually "beating the drums of war" over Iran without having the political courage to directly advocate a military attack before voters. “Now, what's said on the campaign trail – those folks don't have a lot of responsibilities. They're not commander-in-chief. And when I see the casualness with which some of these folks talk about war, I'm reminded of the costs involved in war," he said.

About 600 people were ordered to leave their homes today in southeastern Australia due to rising floodwaters. Floods have hit three eastern states this week, causing at least two deaths and millions of dollars in damage. Nine thousand people had been evacuated from New South Wales on Tuesday.

There it was, splashed across the front page of Sunday'sEnquirer in big, bold letters: “Poll Puts Chabot in Lead.” The headline used for the Internet version was, as usual, even more excitable: “Poll: Chabot Leads Big Over Driehaus.”

The article was about a poll that Cincinnati's only daily newspaper commissioned on Ohio's 1stCongressional District race, using the Survey USA polling firm. Its results show Republican Steve Chabot leading Democratic incumbent Steve Driehaus by 12 points, or 53 percent to 41 percent.

Republicans already have introduced a bill that seeks to repeal the health care reforms passed this week by Democrats, but only the most delusional of GOP “true believers” expect it has a chance of passage.